Unemployment and depressive affect: a motivational and attributional analysis

It was hypothesized on the basis of expectancy-valence theory that the negative affect that follows failure to obtain employment will be stronger among those individuals who are more strongly motivated to seek employment than among those who are less motivated. This hypothesis was tested by administering a questionnaire to a sample of 212 unemployed youth contacted through helping agencies in Adelaide, South Australia. Consistent with the hypothesis, the results showed that subjects who indicated in their ratings that they were highly motivated to get a job also provided higher ratings of depressive affect. Those subjects with higher levels of depressive affect were less likely to blame themselves for their unemployment and more likely to blame external difficulties, such as the current economic situation. They also provided higher ratings of the valence or perceived attractiveness of work itself. Their retrospective ratings concerning how confident they were of getting a job on leaving school and how much they needed and tried for a job also tended to be higher than those of the less depressed subjects. Results are discussed in relation to the expectancy-valence approach, Beck's theory of depression, the helplessness theory of depression, and recent discussions of cognitive-effect linkages that employ attribution concepts.